AUTHOR ARCHIVES

Charles S. Clark

Charles S. Clark joined Government Executive in the fall of 2009. He has been on staff at The Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, National Journal, Time-Life Books, Tax Analysts, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, and the National Center on Education and the Economy. He has written or edited online news, daily news stories, long features, wire copy, magazines, books, and organizational media strategies.

January 11, 2019
A key Senate Democrat on Thursday asked the acting Interior secretary to rethink the current arrangement that allows the National Park Service during the partial government shutdown to continue public tours of Washington’s Old Post Office clock tower located inside the Trump International Hotel. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the newly...

January 10, 2019
Stressing that special agents risk their security clearances if they incur much personal debt, leaders of the 14,450-member FBI Agents Association on Thursday sent a petition asking Congress and the White House to immediately resume funding for the partially idled Justice Department, the bureau’s parent agency. “On Friday, Jan. 11,...

January 9, 2019
The Government Publishing Office, rebounding from an unsuccessful contracting deal terminated last July, has awarded a $114.5 million Census printing job to Chicago-based R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. The contract to print questionnaires, letters, inserts, postcards and envelopes that will go out to prospective respondents to the 2020 Census is...

January 9, 2019
Hours before President Trump met with Republican Senators for lunch on Wednesday to shore up support for a southern border wall, House Democrats from the Washington region joined federal union leaders in a taunting press conference decrying the government shutdown. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., called the current partial...

January 8, 2019
In August, the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau submitted an angry resignation letter. Seth Frotman, after seven years as that job’s inaugural occupant, was fed up with then-acting director Mick Mulvaney’s reorganization of the loan division in a way Frotman said favored companies over consumers. Five...

January 8, 2019
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has on several occasions contrasted the Trump administration’s handling of government shutdowns with what he characterizes as the Obama approach of “weaponizing” the lapses in services to make the pain more visible. On Monday, that line was repeated by Russell Vought, Mulvaney’s...

January 7, 2019
Though the partial government shutdown has idled many National Park Service operations, a notable exception in the nation’s capital is the historically protected Old Post Office tower on Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. That tourist destination showcasing a vintage clock and spectacular 12th-floor views shares a building under a government lease to...

January 7, 2019
During their first hours controlling the House in the 116th Congress, Democrats on Jan. 3 and Jan. 4 pushed through an array of single-chamber rules changes that included creation of a long-sought Office of the Whistleblower Ombudsman. By a 418-12 vote, the House on Thursday approved Title II of a...

January 7, 2019
“Due to the lapse in appropriations, most IRS operations are closed,” reads the emergency notice to employees on the website of the Internal Revenue Service. With only about 9,946 (12.5 percent) of the agency’s 80,000 employees on the job, according to its contingency plan finalized in late November, the tax...

January 4, 2019
The Social Security Administration’s inaccurate verification of eligibility start dates may have resulted in as much as $657 million in overpayments in the disability and supplemental insurance programs, a watchdog found. Based on a sampling of 200 claims in fiscal 2015-2016, SSA employees “did not accurately establish” disability insurance entitlement...